100-Year-Old US Adoption Stories Similar to Current International Adoption Placement Reasons

This quirky little article that quotes stories from 100 years ago shows that poverty and lack of a safety net were the reasons for “abandonment.” Sadly, today this is still one of the main reasons that children are in orphanages in foreign countries. Even this author understands that “for a mother to voluntarily give up her children, from society’s viewpoint, is virtually unthinkable.” Yet this was the only choice, just like it is much too often the only choice in foreign countries today.

“Before our modern safety nets it was not all that unusual to see stories in the old newspapers about children being given up for adoption because their mothers could not support them.”

Does this sound similar to current international stories?

“The first story involved Retta Collins of 1027 Center St., who “was compelled to release a mother’s claim” on her three children “that her young ones might not suffer starvation,” The Gleaner reported Oct. 15, 1911.

“Left a widow six months ago, the plucky woman through grit and determination managed to keep together her family by working for almost a non-existing wage in the local cotton mill.”

A protracted illness caused her to lose that job, and with no way to feed her children — Clinton, 7; Grace, 4; and William, 2 — she agreed, although “sobbing as if her heart would break,” to sign them over to the Kentucky Children’s Home at Louisville.

“The woman agreed to give up her children because the struggle to maintain them had become too much for her.”

When officials went to her abode they found “a sparsely furnished room bare but for a single bed and chair.” The sick woman was lying in bed with her children around her.

The woman explained that her husband, John Collins, had died the previous May and left her with no way to support her children.

The job at the cotton mill at first sufficed to scrape by, but “the wages she made were small and she and the children had barely enough to eat. Finally, even this meager living was wrested from her by illness, which forced her to give up her position at the cotton mill.”

For weeks the children had been cared for by neighbor women “who themselves have a hard struggle in life.

“Mrs. Collins said she knew it was for the best to give her children up. She was told that she had to give up all claim to them and she said she understood. She broke down and the scene as she struggled for courage to stand the trying ordeal was pathetic.”

The beleaguered family was split with the woman being taken to the city hospital while the kids went to the Louisville orphanage.”

“Birthmother” Reclaims

“The second story comes from the Oct. 17, 1936, issue of the Evansville Courier, and relates to four children who had been abandoned at Fishtown.

Kindly social worker Bessie Grayson of the little settlement under Water Street is depicted in one photo holding the youngest kid, a toddler named Jack. Another photo shows Junior, 6; June, 5; and David, 4.

They had been left at the home of Sallie Gibson on Oct. 14 and their unknown mother promised to come back directly.

At first no one knew the identity of the children. But then Mrs. Joseph Rode, the Vanderburgh County probation officer, saw the photos and said they were the children of Clara Johnson, who had earlier been a client.

Rode said Johnson and her children had appeared in her office about a month earlier and said they had been living under the Ohio River bridge for about the past year.

““She said her husband had deserted her the night before.”

Rode at first asked the township trustee to care for the little family, but was told it was a Henderson County problem.

They were then taken to a privately run rescue mission for temporary aid.

“At the mission they received money for food and clothing, and these Mrs. Johnson bought. A few days later Mrs. Johnson called upon Mrs. Rode again to inform her that the family was staying with friends in a tent and she would not need further relief.”

I wonder if Mrs. Rode felt entitled to the children like so many PAPs who lament when birthfamilies decide to parent or foreign foster parents refuse to sign off on international adoptions? Nah! That is the modern problem.

A Mother’s Claim
[Evansville Courier-Press 10/15/11 by Frank Boyett]

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